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CHAPTER VI.

WE ARE UNABLE TO PAY THIS DEBT.

THERE is no subject upon which even statesmen are so frequently the victims of delusion as that of the resources of their own country. Whether in regard to the relation which their wealth bears to their indebtedness, or the relation which their resources bear to that of other nations; and quite as vague are their notions about their ability to pay enormous debts. One source of this deception is the value which they attach to property, based upon the crazy inflation of the currency and the corrupt imaginations of speculators engaged in stock-gambling.

This delusion is not peculiar to the financiers of our own age and country. It has been universal. Such is the intoxicating nature of trade and commerce in the height of a paper bubble.

Just before the outbreak of the French Revolution, which was precipitated by national bankruptcy, and the reckless violence which always accompanies bold loaning and extravagant living, even the most illustrious English statesman were dazzled and carried away with the grandeur of its profligacy, and for a time believed the French finances solid and immoveable, because the national credit was pledged for its redemption.

Edmund Burke was so completely captivated with Necker's theory, that when Necker wrote a history of his political views and administration, confessing his failure, and the fallacies of his opinion, Burke was dismayed and mortified at his own simplicity in being the victim of such hollow expedients; nearly every one of which remind one of the present times. Indeed, in all times, these expedients and subterfuges are the same.

The younger William Pitt, the most searching analytical mind of his day, saw entirely through Necker's financial scheme, and the ruin that would follow it, and in consequence, refused the

tempting offer of the hand of Necker's gifted daughter, Madame de Stael.

It were amusing were it not sorrowful, to contemplate the picture which Secretary Chase has drawn of his financial plans in the ruin of the country. A complete detail of the financial history of the Treasury and the currency, with its shams, tricks, and villainies consequent upon them, practiced by himself, would rival in romance the confessions of Barnum in the exhibition of his Japanese Mermaid, Joyce Heath, Tom Thumb, the woolly horse, and "WHAT IS IT?";-the low artifices to which they both resorted to deceive the people; the one in shows for their amusement, the other in falsehoods to overthrow their liberty.

We have never duly considered the present condition of our resources since the conclusion of the war, and the preliminary questions to be settled before we commence our calculation.

1. The war drove out of the country thousands of millions of capital, much of its own bullion, in consequence of its general unsafety.

2. It destroyed thousands of millions of dollars of capital in the Southern States, which could no longer be taxed.

3. The destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars in the Confederate States rendered unavailable other hundreds of millions of dollars in the Northern States, which were dependent upon the South for a market.

4. There has been no increase of a single article produced in the United States which could be exported, or added to the financial prosperity of the country, except kerosene oil, which is a late discovery, and insignificant matter.

A blind, stupid and destructive fanaticism assumes that our resources are incomparably greater than at any time heretofore. This they demonstrate by the magnitude of our public debt, which they denominate as so much active capital; and the destruction of public and private property, which they parade as a triumph over treason.

The chief source of this delusion is that they account our money as capital, when in fact, it is the certified evidence of our debt and poverty. The bonds held are simply the amount of debt which we hold against ourselves.

There is no more common expression or delusion in regard to the public debt than this, that since the debt is mostly due among ourselves, and brings as much property from one as they take from another.

This is not true, in fact, any more than that it is an argument. The bonds are not all due among ourselves; but upon the contrary, they were directly sold to European capitalists, as far as it was possible to get them into that market, where they are quoted from the market reports of London, Amsterdam, and Paris; but millions of these bonds were bought in America by European capitalists, and re-invested in bank stocks under European auspices.

It was this investment of European capital in American securities which was the most complete solution of the visit of the European capitalists to this country, which excited as much curiosity, and elicited as much parade, as did Japanese Tommy's advent into the city of New York.

It is the most disgusting form of balderdash to maintain that poor men own bonds, or any other interest-bearing securities in America, any more than in Europe.

The mere fact that some of these bonds are the property of American citizens, makes it in no sense different from their ownership abroad. Once cast upon the market, they will seek the idle capital of the world, and absorb it.

The debt is an offset to the resources of the country, and must be deducted to their full amount from them in the calculation of our wealth. It injures every department of wealth, commerce, manufactures, agriculture and navigation. It withdraws from active business to positive idleness, all of the capital to the full extent of the funding system.

THE CONVERSION OF THE BONDS INTO BANK NOTES IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RESOURCES OF THE PEOPLE.

Not one dollar passes out of the bonds into National bank currency which does not cost the public nearly one hundred per cent. in interest on the bonds interest, on the bank notes and the ruinous premium paid upon the depreciated currency with which they bought their bonds, besides the extravagant bonus which

was given as an inducement to purchase them. Every bondholder realizes this amount of money for his bonds. Against such profits in investment there can be no successful competition. Railroads cannot be built. How is it possible for them to offer an equivalent security to these bonds? Commerce is checked, because the bonds are proof against shipwreck; and who can invest in the legitimate trade of the ocean against such odds. The Western people cannot hope for the usual improvement of their lands, because no investment in improvements can justify the payment of more than six per cent., and scarcely that amount can be realized in agricultural pursuits with the entire destruction of our exports and commerce, and a most extraordinary increase of our current government expenses. Our standing army is quadrupled. The expenses of each soldier is twice as much as formerly. The clerical force of every department is more than duplicated. This is the financial condition of the country and a fair exhibit of its resources and capacity to liquidate its debt. It is a most notable fact, that during the administration of Mr. Buchanan, the chief tangible accusation against him, was the extravagance with which he administered the government and the exceeding great difficulty with which the money was raised, and that he left the treasury empty at the end of his term.

Mr. Buchanan left the country free from debt, in the most healthy industrial condition; the people not only in comfortable, but in affluent circumstances. Such is the contrast.

THE WEALTH OF THE COUNTRY.

What has been added to the productive wealth of the country to meet the additional expenditures? It may be safely assumed that no one branch of industry has been increased in the last five years, except that used or destroyed in the military service, consisting of arms, ammunition, artillery, &c.

WE HAVE LOST WITHOUT ANY COMPENSATION WHATEVER. 2,600,000 able-bodied men were taken from actual productive business; from the plough, the loom, the anvil and buildings of the country, whose daily labor added millions to the stock of American capital.

The horses, mules, cattle, sheep, hogs, wagons, gears, neces

sary to the support of such armies during four years of uninterrupted and constantly augmenting warfare, the entire value of which has been scarcely less than $5,000,000,000, which may be added to the calculation, but does not present the full extent of the loss we suffer.

No nation or man has ever trampled with impunity upon the clearly written law of God, or the well-defined rights of man, without answering directly for his crime.

The law of God is a crystal mirror which reflects back upon the soul of every rational being, the exact character of the motives of his heart and the action of his life. No man, nation nor age, ever committed a crime or perpetrated an enormity, which did not fling its monstrous image back upon its guilty perpetrator. Nor have we escaped in either morals or finances, this clearly marked law of the living God. When Sheridan's highwaymen carried the torch through Virginia, and the hordes of Sherman's incendiaries were turned loose upon the defenceless people of Georgia, the United States were the sufferers. The cotton-fields destroyed made our corn-fields worthless and the very same communities which sent armies to burn cotton-fields, had to burn their corn-fields for fuel.

The poor man in the army burned the clothes of his family, under the delusion that he was impoverishing the cotton planters, and did not discover his mistake until he returned from the war and found that the cotton goods which he used to buy for ten cents, now cost him fifty. He was wild with excitement over the fires that swept down the sugar-house, and never dreamed of his own suffering, until his children were crying for syrups which he could not buy.

Such has been the complete work of destruction and the entire mutilation of our available resources that nearly every article. which secured to us the balance of trade abroad, hemp, cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco, with tar, resin and turpentine, was destroyed by our own hands, and our resources cut off by our own folly.

THE PROCESS OF EXHAUSTION.

The cotton plant supplied the people with its fibre for clothing. The regular supply of this staple was bought by the people of

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